Saturday, November 16, 2013

Holing Up to Sew!

This is Jeannie’s hands at her featherweight while we were piecing away in Weslaco just a week ago! It feels longer than that, doesn’t it?

And I’m off to Texas again tomorrow morning…it seems I’ve done A LOT of Texas trips this year, and that is perfectly great with me. I love Texas, and Texans! I look at the time we lived in Texas as one of the best times of my life – all 3-1/2 years of it. What a change from Idaho that was!

So today, I’m repacking trunk show bags, making sure I have the right class samples for visits with 3 separate guilds, and filling in the remainder of the bag weight with quilts for my lectures. It changes every time just a bit – depending on what class samples have to be stuck in there and what lectures the guilds have asked for.

Since I can only travel with 100 lbs of quilts – usually combined tours like this end up with a combo of everything, a smorgasbord of Scrap User’s System with some String Fling thrown in and a bit of Adventures with Leaders & Enders as a side-dish.

It’s my last teaching tour of the year! Boy, has this year flown by faster than any year previous.

My trip to Germany with Sew Many Places – all 26 of us going --- is coming up on December 6th, and I know there will be awesome things to share via the blog and Facebook while we are touring Germany, Austria and other parts of Bavarian wonder!

All while our Celtic Solstice mystery is running!

Don’t worry, I will have clues written ahead of time so I can cover those Fridays that I am on the road. And don’t forget that we will be doing the Mystery Monday Link-Ups! The Monday FOLLOWING a clue release, you can share any amount of progress you have made during the week on your own blog, and link it up here on my blog so we are all in one place. You do need a blog or a Flickr account to link up. I can’t wait to see how your quilts will be progressing! This time between Thanksgiving and New Years is my favorite time of year.

I returned from my friend’s house and our 1-1/2 day sewing fest yesterday afternoon, meeting The Hubster at the airport at 4:30 so he could return his rental car from his business trip.

And all the while I am trying to be comforting and sympathetic I am casting hexes over him with my eyes to keep him from polluting me before this trip to Texas and making ME sick with all I have coming up in the near future.

And on top of that, we had our closing last night on the refi of our house! Busy evening.

But after DH was chicken-souped and sent to bed, I escaped to the germ-free-zone of my basement studio ((NO SICKIES ALLOWED DOWN HERE!!)) and pulled out my stash of string units I have sewn over the past couple of days and trimmed and cut and de-papered until bed time. And yes – I slept in the guest room. I am NOT. I repeat – NOT going to get sick from this!

I counted. I have 124 string sashings. See them pinned in bundles of 10? Makes them easy to count that way!

I counted my corner stones that are under way. I have 33.

I am paper piecing these little square in a square cornerstones. They finish at 2”. The pdf for printing the foundation papers is found HERE.

I counted my blocks to see where we stand:

52!!

My plans have changed a bit. Instead of doing 49 blocks set 7 X 7 – I’m going to do 56 blocks set 7 X 8. That means I need four more blocks.

Guess what I will be doing today after book orders are out and trunk show stuff is packed?

You will find me in the sewing room staying away from the sickie monsters! And I think we should do QUILT-CAM at 2pm Eastern, don’t you? Bring a project and come sew with me. We can stay away from the sickies together!

Have you entered my Give-Away for Quiltmaker Magazines 100 blocks by 100 designers, Vol 8?? The blog tour is still going on, and my drawing is tomorrow evening! I’ll be drawing the winners from my hotel room in Texas – click HERE and leave me a comment on that post to win! I’m giving away THREE copies!

And I think that is all for now. Time to get OFF the computer and get busy. See you at 2pm!

19 comments:

All I remembered was Quilt-cam at 2pm Eastern Time. That's about 20.00 European Time!!!!!!!YEAH!!!! Get to see you live!!!! So excited!!!! Have to get a project up at that time to jon in the FUN!Love to SEE you! <3Hugs, Ria (the Netherlands)Oh, and ofcourse: hope you hubby is feeling better soon......yesyesyesyesyesyesyes.......... (humming in myself...... :) ....) yesyesyesyesyesyes......

It might be a good idea to have an extra glass of orange juice today and the next few days. It can't hurt. If you do think you feel a cold coming on, you can try Zicam. It seems to help. Sure hope you don't get sick. Will be watching and sewing along with you this afternoon.

Go get some Zicam encase you start feel the cold symptoms. I woke up with a sore throat a couple of weeks ago and started taking it in the middle of the night. It works if you start early and don't forget a dose. The other brand does not work as well, I tried it. Hope you don't get the cold.

Randy will be so proud when you get that quilt together, I still have not putmy blocks into a quilt but I sure love what you are doing with yours.Of course I made two in two different colorways :0).......maybe I'll get themdone before years end?

Safe travels and hope the germs don't get you.....my husband always comes homesick from his business travel too :0(...not the gift I want either.

Hey Bonnie! You probably hate all of our here's how to not get sick advice, but this really worked for me this summer when hubs had a horrible summer cold. I used doTerra OnGuard on the bottom of my feet every day. I never caught it! I have been using it pretty regularly now with all the germs flying...trying to stay healthy can be a trick this time of year. Good luck, hope I can tune in at 2 pm. THANKS for all you do!

I'm a brand new quilter - just now working on my second project. I've always wanted to add this to my list of fun things to do, but never had the courage to cut into a beautiful piece of fabric. This summer, my husband's cousin decided it was time for my quilting lesson and despite the fact that she was in the midst of chemo treatments, took me under her wing and we made that first cut. I'm nearly finished with my second project now and am totally addicted. Even joined the church quilting group that meets weekly.

Oh wow, 2pm eastern is10 am in Alaska. That's only an hour from now.... I went to Lowe's yesterday and picked up paint cards. Got the one's used in the introduction, and also a set of the same colors in a more muted version. But, when I was at the store, I found fat quarters in the brighter colors and they looked good! Bought some and will fill in from my stash - which is sadly lacking in these colors (well, I havea lot of green it turns out). Off to get organized to see if I can't catch some of the quiltcam.

Love the idea of winning a magazine, so pick me random number generator. Like the cheddar color you are using in your blocks. I am still deciding on fabrics for the new mystery and cheddar will be in mine.

Oh darn! I miss you live! It's 2:50 Central time here in sunny Manitoba Canada. I am in my studio and had been listening to my Ricky Tim's CD and reading through some FB messages. So off goes Ricky (temporarily) and I'm going to watch Quilt Cam while I work in my Scrappy Mountains you inspired me to make. Have a great weekend!Linda Craig